C) DESCRIPTION OF CORE UNIT Mission The mission of the Biostatistics Core is to support and help promote high quality, innovative research by providing the COAST III investigators with biostatistical expertise in clinical research and biomedical computing. In orderto fulfill this mission, the Core staff will collaborate in the design, execution and analysis of the laboratory and clinical research studies, and collaborate in the development and application of new statistical methods and computing technology as needed by the projects. The Core staff will function as collaborative members of research teams. This approach, with its emphasis on collaboration, maximizes the benefit of the resource to the individual projects and helps foster and retain an expert, motivated and innovative staff committed to their specific research areas.